HOW TO CREATE THE TIPPING POINT FOR YOUR DEALS TO CLOSE

Cracking the code. That's what one of my managers told me after the President's Club. He came up to me and he goes, man, you've cracked the code on how to sell this product. And that's what we're going to be talking to you about today is this smarter way of figuring out the system, your system, not mine, not someone else's, but yours to selling your product in your market. And it may take some time, but it works. And instead of people just grinding, doing more and more dumb things faster, the smart people figure it out. They reverse engineer it. They design it. They meticulously evaluate it. And you can start with someone else's system, but there's some logical elements, some steps that we all have to go through.

Hey, Fred, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Yeah, so I've been at this professionals enterprise selling game for over 40 years. Okay. When I graduated from Northeastern University a long time ago, the people who were hiring— Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment Corporation, Tektronix, the company for which I worked— they would only hire people with electrical engineering degrees. There was no such thing as an SE or a technical guru in the selling process, right?

I remember.

And I interviewed with IBM and they said no. But then, I landed at Tektronix, which is a test and measurement company. Hewlett-Packard was in that space at that time. And I've had a marvelous career. I've worked for 14 companies since then. In both management and individual contributor positions, but I prefer the individual contributor gig for a lot of reasons, and we can talk about that. And, you know, I would say 10 out of the 14, I had been a top producer, you know, number 1, number 2, number 3 in the organization. And it's, you know, it's been very, very good to me.

Well, what was it like? Because a double E That's a tough degree.

Yeah, right. Um, I, you know, I have had the tendency to take the path of most resistance, right? So when I, when I went to Northeastern, I originally wanted to become a world-famous disc jockey like Don Imus, now Howard Stern, right? Um, and so I thought, let's go and get a communications degree at Northeastern University because they've got this co-op program.

Right.

I did that for exactly one quarter and then decided, I don't know that I'm getting my money's worth here. I can probably learn everything that I'm learning right now by reading People magazine. So I switched from liberal arts to electrical engineering. And let me tell you, electrical engineering is harder.

Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, because that, um, at that time, like, software or programming really wasn't an option. It was electrical engineering was programming.

Yeah, software was punch cards, man. And so, you know, while going to university, yes, electrical engineering could go in a variety of directions. One could be, you know, go to, you know, like real electrical— electric engineering and do power grids and that sort of thing. But electronics was coming up. right? And this is when binary was taking over and when it was— because most of the computers prior to that were analog, there was this discipline of learning how zeros and ones worked.

Yeah.

And at Northeastern, there was a computer club, but it was a bunch of green screens that were literally in a caged Area, right? You know, if you were in the computer club, they would give you a key and you were allowed to go in there. Everybody else, punch cards.

Yeah, but it seems like you were an outgoing guy. Clearly you're doing DJ stuff. You're not a, you know, wallflower, right?

Yes.

So selling, did it come natural or was it—

So, um, you may have to bleep this. Um, so I'm one of 4 boys. I'm the eldest of, you know, 4 boys born in 5 years. My My parents were Roman Catholic. And, you know, when we were like 9— when I was 9 or 10 years old, my mother decided that we would get a horse, okay? And, you know, Westerns were a big deal in the 1960s, and yay, we're gonna get a horse. Well, you know, part of getting a horse was the responsibility of cleaning up behind the horse, okay?

Okay.

You know, you want to ride it every single day, that's perfectly fine, but there are chores to be done. And so I would muck the stall out and, you know, that would then go over there someplace and become a big pile of, you know, horse manure.

Yep.

And, you know, eventually that pile got so high that, you know, come springtime, my father said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take that pile and I want you to distribute it out across the field. Okay? And it was a pretty big pile. And so what I did is I went into the barn, I found a piece of wood about like so, found some paint and a paintbrush, and I went out and I put the following sign on the, on the tree that was out in front of our house facing the road. Horse manure for sale. Okay. And so fundamentally, what happened was a guy shows up in a truck and he, he shows up and he, he puts it in the back of the truck and he gives me $5. Big money that time. That time.

Yeah.

$5.

And he takes it to his mushroom farm, right? So he does all the work. And I get all the money and I don't have to do the chore. He came back a second time and brought a bottle of wine for my parents, $5 from me, shoveled it out as well. So the very first thing that I ever learned how to sell was horseshit.

Well, at that point, was the connection between, um, doing something smart and then getting a reward?

It was, you know, fundamentally laziness. Which is good. It's, you know, I just, I mean, I can either do this chore and get no money, right? Or I can, I can come up with another idea and get somebody else to do the work and I get the compensation. And that was the, that was the thing that, that, you know, taught me, right, that there's another way to, to, to approach this and that there's a direct correlation between your ingenuity and your compensation.

Is it ingenuity, creativity? Because that's something that, you know, you— they don't teach it in school, right?

Well, you know, um, like I said, you know, it, it could be laziness. When, when, you know, when I was doing the DJ thing, um, I was also— I was doing lots of stuff, but, um, I was working with a friend of mine who built out the the biggest sound systems in all the big clubs in Boston, okay, including 15 Lansdowne Street, which is now the House of Blues. And so you'd go in and you'd pitch this thing, you know, he would do the pitching and he would do, you know, all the, you know, all of the design work and stuff like that. And my responsibility was basically grunt work, right? You know, cabling and all this kind of stuff. But when you would go into an existing club, their equipment was in there would have to come out. Okay? And so, what are you gonna do with this thing? And I offered to, you know, to the club owner, look, you know, why don't I see if I can find someone who'll buy this from you? And sure enough, you know, I went around because I knew all the folks in radio stations and things like that and pinged every single one of them. And then eventually WGBH, which is the, you know, the NPR radio station up here, said, yeah, we're, you know, we're looking to do remote gigs. Um, you know, what's it cost? And what's, you know, tell me about the sound system and things like that. And I fundamentally took a 50% commission on that sale, right? Because the club owner didn't want it anymore.

Yep.

I could turn it into money and, and do all the legwork. All they had to, you know, worry about, quite honestly, was somebody showing up to pick it up and getting half the take, right? And, and so, you know, that was, that was when, you know, I, I, that was when, while getting an electrical engineering degree and all doing all this DJ stuff and television stuff and things like that, I realized that there was a calling. Right? And, and that was that there is a direct correlation between how well you do something and how hard you work, right? How hard, how hard, you know, you, you go out and kind of make the thing happen. There's a direct correlation between those activities and how much you make. And that is what made, you know, that's when I finally, you know, when I was, you know, having enough fun, right? You know, when, when, when I was deciding to move away from the entertainment industry take advantage of the electrical engineering degree, etc. That's why I went down this path. And also the co-op program at Northeastern University taught me in so many words that I didn't want to really be an electrical engineer. I loved sitting around and talking about it, right, with the guys at Raytheon and the Coast Guard and the co-op jobs. Loved talking about it, right? Actually doing the work, not so much, right? And so You know, that's when it kind of dawned on me that there is a correlation between the education that I had gotten and, you know, did pretty well with that. And, you know, and I guess this desire to have a correlation between hard work, determination, and compensation.

And what was it like when you first got into sales? Did you feel at home?

Well, so What I learned was I wasn't a natural.

Okay.

And so, you know, I went and took Dale Carnegie courses and just simply, you know, you teach me how to do a thing, I'm going to go do it. And I would do it and I was really bad at it. I mean, really bad at it and clunking around and trying to, you know, if I could make this happen, would you be interested in of whatever, right? Yeah, exactly. If this outcome is interesting to you, would you be willing to do the following thing? And you'd apply it. But the thing that I liked about the Dale Carnegie approach was it was an approach, right? It was a construct.

Something structured.

Exactly. It was a thing that could be applied regardless of how poorly I did it and regardless of how of made up it felt, you know, it was at least a structure and things began to click. Okay? Early on, I worked for a company that rented electronic test equipment and they then, after some period of time, maybe 2 to 3 years, wanted to sell off that inventory. Okay? And I was okay at the rental thing, but when it came to reselling stuff, right, that was Pretty good as new. I mean, 2 to 3 years old, that's not that old in the test and measurement equipment. I killed it, absolutely killed it, because the value proposition of selling something that had been completely calibrated, was well taken care of, was, you know, perfectly up to snuff at a discount compared to buying something new, did extremely well from there. And then as a result of that, you know, then was kind of discovered and went into work for Tektronix. Tektronix. Again, Hewlett-Packard and Tektronix were the 2 companies at that stage of the game. When I went into Tektronix, I was the first person in the history of the company to ever hit a thing called Masters. What Masters was was the top 10% of each of the sales organizations in the different divisions. So if you hit top 10%, it's like President's Club, right?

Yeah.

That kind of thing. I was the first person in the history of the company to ever do that 3 years running. Bang, bang, bang. Because the way it works in sales is you succeed, the bigger goal, right? They goal you out of success, right?

Right.

I was able to pull that off. I was not able to do it 4 years in a row, right? But, you know, that taught me that, you know, the right scenario, right? The right scenario and the level of effort and commitment to success can bring sequential success. And then, you become a little rock star for a year until you get the new goal. But so, that combination of the success prior to going into professional sales, finding a methodology and then applying it almost religiously, almost to a fault, and let success come as a result of that. And then, you know, again, being put in a situation where I was allowed to be successful made all the difference in the world. It's kind of, you know, a magical combination of ingredients.

Because the EE background and a methodology kind of fit together. Because, you know, my background was software development. So I was looking for an architecture of a sales process. Instead of little gimmicks. Right, right. Yeah.

You know, closing techniques. I mean, it's okay. It's okay. Understanding closing techniques because there's a psychological approach to this because fundamentally what we are doing is helping people come to a conclusion. Okay. And I have been a big believer, and this is something that an early sales manager taught me, that I'm incapable of convincing anybody of anything. But I can help them discover things. And if they go through a discovery, a sequential discovery process, and they're learning on their own and they're coming to their own conclusions, then eventually there's the distinct possibility that they will come to a conclusion that's favorable for me, okay, in the company for which I work. But I'm not very good at convincing people of anything.

Well, that's it. People think of sales as like the hard close or being so charismatic that they're going to change the company. It's really Just walking through a decision-making process and being smart enough to only do it with the people most likely to buy.

Right, right, exactly.

In the order they're most likely to buy.

And so that's, you know, what's during the maturation process from Dale Carnegie to today, I learned that there's kind of a bifurcation. And that is there is a process and, you know, You can pick Insight Selling or the Challenger Sale, or you can pick the Dale Carnegie or the Sandler approach. Whatever your approach is, that's fine. My preference is that someone who is a professional has the ability to go to a whiteboard and describe their process end-to-end.

Right.

This is what I do at the beginning. This is how I get the attention. This is how I get the interest. This is how I get the meeting with senior executives. And describe the process end-to-end all the way to the transaction, right? So that's a process. You know, it's like semiconductor manufacturing process. It's like, you know, a printed circuit board process.

You design the board before you start building it, right?

Exactly. But it's, you know, it's an end-to-end process. But there's a difference between that and a measurement mechanism, okay? So you may have heard of MEDIC or MEDPIC, right? So I don't think that MEDIC and MEDPIC are a process. They know the process. What they are. Exactly. It's a red, yellow, green across each of the letters as to where you stand, right? Do you understand the measurable outcome? Have you gotten to the executive spot? Have you built a champion, right? And it is the combination of those 2 of having a well-defined articulatable— is that a word?— process, right? that you understand and are constantly refining and constantly trying to improve, as well as a checklist, right? So, you understand how you are doing in your process. They're 2 very different things. And so, that's kind of the grown-up thing that I've learned over 40 years. It's the combination of those 2 that equate success.

And did you come to this conclusion once you became a leader? And saw how other salespeople sell?

Or— No, no, nope. It was, you know, it was, I don't know, attempting new things. It may have been a sales training activity that my company sponsored. It may have been a book that I read, right? You know, as an engineer, I have a tendency to treat the thing like a problem. Okay? And, and, and, and, you You know, the thing that I love to do is to bring a new idea to market.

Okay?

So those companies where I have typically succeeded, it has been a company that is taking on the big guys with a new approach and coming in and just, you know, I mean, proselytizing, right? And hammering at it, hammering at it. It just, just keep working it and bringing the new idea in and selling the idea and then eventually getting into the to the opportunity where you can prove that your idea is worthy of consideration. That may be a meeting. That may be a proof of value. That may be whatever it is. But, you know, that's the thing that I love to do. It's this, you know, it's bringing a new idea to market. And it is hard.

It's very hard.

It is hard because the established folks, the IBMs and Splunks and the CAs and the Oracles, right? It's, you know, they They do business by contract because they're already in place. Taking them on and then eventually eclipsing them, that's a problem that is hard to solve. And if you can solve it, man, and you can actually make it happen, it is remarkably gratifying. And so yes, I look at the entire thing as a problem that needs to be solved. And then I just go out and learn as much as I can to find find the way to solve the problem and get this new idea to market. And I can give you some examples of the things that I do.

Sure.

That's at the heart of it. There's a problem to be solved. This idea is worthy of consideration. How are we going to get this idea out there and get people to believe in it and eventually transaction? The eventuality, the buy in my stuff is the thing that comes of this process. I mean, it's a passionate, deep belief in the idea itself.

And what excites you about it? Is it the solving of the problem? Is it the winning?

No.

It is that I convinced somebody at a senior level to part with their money and put their career on the line to believe in my idea. The thing that is most gratifying is is when we have gotten to the execution. Okay, this is after the transaction. This is after the implementation, when we have gotten the execution of the idea up and running. And it proves me right, that the idea that I convinced them of is actually physically out there working, whether it's an IT thing or an information security thing or manufacturing thing, whatever that thing happens to be. When they, you know, if they believe in me and it executes and it executes well, there is nothing more satisfying than that. It's like, you know, um, what's the best way to put this? It's— I love it when a plan comes together is, is probably the best way to do it. Because, you know, throughout the entire thing, I've asked them to trust me, okay, to believe in me and give me their hard-earned time and their hard-earned money and their people and all of this, this stuff in order to take my idea and execute against it. And when it comes to fruition, that is the most satisfying thing. The transaction itself, that's midway between bringing the idea to them and convincing them of the idea, and then the execution of the idea. The transaction is a step in the process.

And let's go back to competing against the big guys. How do you wedge yourself in? How do you get them to start thinking That they can't do it with the incumbent.

Yep. So there is a great book that is not a sales book, but it is the best-selling book I've ever read. It's Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.

Yep.

Okay. And so in that book, and I'm telling you stuff you already know, he talks about, you know, the 3 kinds of people that create an epidemic. Okay. When I, when I hear epidemic, that, that means to me that there's a new, new thing that is going to become something that is broadspread, that lots of folks get into.

Yeah.

Everybody's driving Volkswagens now or they're using hush puppies are the examples in the book, but you understand what I mean, right? The use of cell phones, that kind of thing. It just becomes something everybody does. That's his example of an epidemic. He talks about the 3 kinds of people. They are mavens. They are salespeople and they are connectors.

Yeah.

Okay? I'm a pretty good salesperson but I'm a really good connector. I mean really good connector. Okay? And so what I do is when I put together the plan to take the idea to market, I look for those 3 kinds of people. Okay? Mavens are usually people who work at organizations like PricewaterhouseCoopers, at Deloitte, KPMG, Accenture, and their ilk. Those are people who are advising senior executives about the challenges that they have. Those are competitive challenges, security challenges, whatever they happen to be. The challenges that they have in front of them and the ways in which they can address those challenges. Okay? So, the first people I go chase down are the people who have the ear of the senior executives who will make a decision on a new idea and an investment in it. And I convince them first and then I ask for their help to go proselytize because they are credible and they have the trusted relationships that I do not have.

Yeah.

Second are the salespeople. Salespeople in my business are value-added resellers. These are big $5 billion per annum organizations that have many feet on the street and I go to them and take the same thing to them. Now that is typically more of an economic conversation, transactional conversation, but some of them are into the new thing. But it's taking advantage of that army of people that I can never be. It's not one guy. It's them and their willingness to take my messaging about this new idea. And then the third type of people are connectors, and that's what LinkedIn is all about. You can tell based upon how many people Because I've got 9,600 connections. How many people that person knows who you know, right? And when it's in the hundreds, that's a connector, and that's a person who can help again bring the idea forth. And so I use Gladwell's idea every time I take a new gig, and I go out and I, you know, move these armies of mavens, of salespeople, of connectors to take my idea and take it out and help me get it to people who can actually make a decision, which are sometimes people at individual contributor levels, right? Can be in management levels or senior management levels. But I, you know, first and foremost, put that plan in place because I can't do it by myself. Right? Only so many hours in the day.

And that's it. Because that sounds more like a marketing strategy or a higher level what a manager would do as opposed to a rep. A lot of reps say, well, I just want to call up Mr. Big Cheese and get a meeting with them. But that—

Yeah, but I know a dozen Mr. Big Cheeses, right? So, on the—

You do on Tuesday, right?

Exactly. On the 12th day of employment after I've called one a day, what do you do next, right? No, that's— it's the tidal wave effect of taking it in. But of course, every single one of those, whether it is those salespeople, whether it is those mavens or whether it is those connectors, right? I have to have a trusted relationship with them, or, you know, or they're not going to do anything. And so—

They won't believe you or they won't buy into you.

Right. And so, one of the things that I have worked very carefully on is finding senior managers. This is on the maven side within the big firms who I think are partner material. And then I convince them that this thing, right, this new, new thing will get them to partner. We're going to have to put a lot of energy and effort into it, right? And I will deliver the goods. And I'll talk to you about how I deliver the goods to these, these sorts of folks, right? I'll deliver the goods to you, but I need your help to get this thing to be the new market, whatever that happens to be.

Yeah.

Like I said, I've done it about a dozen times. But that trusted relationship has to exist, right? We have had to have something, either somebody I know trusts— there's that second-degree thing—

Right.

Or I've been able to prove within their organization that that person over there became partner because the last time that I brought this idea, a new idea to that person, they made partner. I can do the same thing for you. And that works like gold, but it's hard to do.

And do they typically have to be early adopters?

Yeah, absolutely. They have to have an understanding of the market space where the big guys are the winners, right? And they have to kind of be willing. Some people aren't. Some want to just stay with with the 800-pound gorilla. But some like to take it on, right? And the objective, right, the possibility of making it to partner by bringing this new thing, this new idea, which could become a new market segment, whatever it works out to be, you know, yeah, they have to be early adopter types, right? They have to like the new idea, but they have to be hungry enough to be able to want to take advantage of this thing for their own personal gain. It is always about them. It is, you know, it ain't about me and the company. You know, it's what they're trying to accomplish in their lives and, you know, and how it is I may be able to facilitate that through, you know, through a campaign and through hard work and by taking a new idea forth.

And was it the first time you read the book that kind of gave you this idea, or was it you had similar strategies that weren't identical, but it polished it?

What happened was, um, I had been, I had been working with these sorts of companies. To think about it, in the early '90s, it was, you know, big, well-known firms that were out there doing professional services work that were doing it with my product. Okay. And, um, but that was, that That was before Gladwell released the book, okay? But I saw that this was a thing. And then when I got into the ERP space, poof, big time. There were big companies that were doing big projects and making much more money than we were on our software sales on the project itself. So I saw this thing kind of repeating itself. And then when his book— when I read his book, it's like, I know who those people are, right? It took me a little while. while because I had not been working with value-added resellers until about 10, 15 years ago, something like that, right?

Yeah.

To realize that the salespeople in Malcolm's model, right, in Gladwell's model, were this category of people with whom I could work. It didn't really come together that what he had described was a way to bring a new idea to market with specific people type and specific company types. But it, you know, it eventually kind of, kind of gelled once I had been working with both the systems integrators and LinkedIn became a real solid mechanism out there and value-added resellers became part of the army.

And what do you see most salespeople doing wrong? Because you've got this system, which It's working for you.

I have stolen 2 things from you, okay? I want them back, baby. Too late. The first is Price's Law, okay? And the second is the 15-month average tenure, okay? You know Fishbowl? Do you've seen this Fishbowl thing?

No.

It's okay if not. No. So, it's sort of like you know, where you go and people kind of, they ask questions of other people about their work situations. Okay.

Okay.

So they've got it, they've got a tech corner of this thing and they've got a sales corner of it, etc. What I see there is mostly sales development reps. In other words, the people are making phone calls and trying to set meetings up, trying to become an account executive.

Okay.

Or other people saying, I'm thinking of taking a job in this company. What's the compensation? Most of the conversations are around that. But my observation is that your point about the fact that the tenure is 15 months or less is longer than the sales cycle. Okay? So, the question is because I'm pretty good at math. It's like, Okay. If it takes 12 months to 18 months to kind of get your sea legs and get the momentum going, okay, and you're only there for 15 months, have you ever been successful?

Right.

And so, I think the first mistake that I think that happens is that people jump jobs too quickly and they may jump it because the OTE. And by the way, I put this out on Facebook. bowl and got 31 responses to it. And one of the people responded that they have been seeing people go from an account executive to a manager to a vice president in 4.5 years. That's 18 months in each gig. Exactly. When exactly did you learn how to do the job?

Yeah.

And so, there seems to be this jump-around stuff that—

A lot of it.

It's like, How do you ever get to the point where you have enough momentum, have built up a pipeline, have got finally a decent set of accounts, a decent set of opportunities where you can crush it? Because that's why we're in the job, right? To do 300% of goal. If you're only there for 15 months, you left because somebody dangled another $20,000 in base salary. Where's the opportunity and where is the existence of the crushing situation?

Right.

So, I think the number one thing that I see happening a bunch is people jump around too much. They just move too quickly. And I've been here 8 years and we just got $1 billion in funding yesterday. You can Google that. Did you vest any of the shares that you got with the company that you're with, right? And so, this other stream of wealth, not income, but wealth. that's been working on the side, you keep cutting that short by moving from company to company. So longevity seems to me to be, you know, one of the things that is necessary to be successful. Okay, you got to be in there long enough to be able to get things going, get settled in, and be known as a player, right?

Yeah.

Somebody who's going to be successful, so people set you up to be successful and then succeed. So I think one of the mistakes— this is a really long answer to a short question is that folks move around way too quickly. Okay, they don't get settled in enough to be successful.

And how have you— if you have solved the other side of this, right? Because typically the first year is a building year, the second year you're doing good, the third year you tend to— that's the big year. But then the quotas in the territory get adjusted. So it becomes even harder. And if you do it, then the next year even harder. Have you found a way of convincing management to give you a little bit different approach?

So a manager for which I worked really early on kind of explained to me the way that managers think. Okay? And what I need to do is convince the manager to think in a certain way, right? so that it's personally beneficial. And he said that there are 3 kinds of people that are out there selling. There are people who are going to do 300% goal. There are people who are gonna just do 100%, maybe a little more, just make it over the line. And then there are people who are not gonna make it, okay? And he said that the trick is to understand the personality of the individual and what lights them up.

And?

Once he understands that he's got a 300-percenter in his game, one of the members of the square root club, Price's Law, right?

Yeah.

You give that person a lower goal because what motivates them is knocking it down halfway through the year and just going crazy. And it isn't the money. It is the percentage, right? It is the 200%, 300% that lights them up. And so, you don't overquote those people. Because what you want is for them to drive home money, I mean, right up to December 31st because it is the percentage of goal that excites them. When you have a person who is perfectly satisfied with 105% of goal, you give them a higher goal.

Right.

And so, the first thing you need to do is convince your manager of this model. And by the way, the people who miss the goal year over year over year, you can decide whether or not they're good Good, right? But you want to give them a higher goal too, right? Because they're 80 percenters, make it 80% of a bigger number. So, we say that person over there and that person over there, this is the 100 percenter and that person is the 80 percenter. Give them the big goal. Give me the small one because I'm going to give you 300%. Trust me. And if you can prove that you've done it, to your point, if you've done it year after year after year, you simply say, look, I'm going to give you another 300%, but you crushed me with a goal. You're going to make it impossible for me to do the thing that I love to do. Right? And so, some managers buy that and some don't. But at least you got to have a pitch. You got to have a model.

You got to try.

You got to have some logic around why I should be crushable.

Exactly.

Cool.

Hey, Fred, I really appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

I'm on LinkedIn. I do not connect with people on Facebook because because, you know, I put stupid stuff there. That's the point. But, you know, if anybody wants to connect on LinkedIn, and, you know, I do spend a fair amount of time mentoring folks, right? Some are in sales, some are not. The company for which I work, I think 70% of us either live in India or were born there. And so I love spending time with, you know, these really young, brilliant people who come get their master's degree and join our company. And I, you know, I've got a model that I can, that I present to them, etc., about how they can, how they can make their way, you know, in corporate America, how to succeed in this, this world that is natural to you and me, right. So, you know, if you want to find me, you can find me on LinkedIn, just send me an invitation. If you want to spend half an hour talking about yourself or listening to my blather, I'm always happy to do Now, you may be wondering, well, that, Bryan, that system doesn't work for me.

Mavens, salespeople, connectors.

Ah, okay.

In Winning the Complex Sale, I help you define what your system can be by taking your sale and breaking down into the little pieces and finding smarter ways of avoiding the traps Having direction, momentum, and control in your deals, and the straightest, most easiest way to win them. And understand how the company buys. We all, we all know how to sell, but our companies, our customers have never been to buying school. They've never been taught how to make a decision. So you have to help them. You have to guide them through it. And of course, they all think they do until they don't and your deal dies or stalls or goes to no decision. Now, The Tipping Point, it's a good book. It's a good strategy book, good idea of the elements it takes to do a tipping point. But in sales, do you have your process? Have you tried to write it down? Have you tried to codify it, to put it into kind of a heuristic or a process to understand the elements and how the deal gets done? And I got to tell you, it used to happen all the time. I go into a new account and I try and sit down with the team and walk through their process. And although some of them who had been doing it for years, they kind of knew, but it was hard to articulate. It was hard to get it out. This is what Winning the Complex Sale is all about. Check it out at b2brevenue.com because in a year, we're all going to be a year older. We're all going to have made some kind of money. But are we going to be that much better at the 2 major elements of sales, getting meetings and winning the large deals? Those are the things that are going to take our career to the next level. You can wait, but what does waiting get you? Less money, less activity, less revenue. That's what we want is revenue. Go to b2brevenue.com and check out the courses. The link is in the show notes below. Also right below the Scratchpad link.

Give it a shot.

Let me know what you think. If you're using Salesforce, oh God, you know, it's a lot of work to keep it up to date. And we don't always have the window open at the right time at the right place. A Chrome plugin where you can enter the information so seamlessly and you'll like it.

Give it a try.

At least see if it helps you out at scratchpad.com. We'll see y'all next time.

I was just going to give a bit of a testimonial, if that's all right, just to kick it off. Just only if it's positive. No, it is positive. It was a— yeah, um, just because I started the course, I think, in June of last year, 2021. I got a few more months left of access, which is good, um, but I feel like it's been a transformative experience in my own personal and professional life. I was able to go from a period of a low sales slump in the middle of last year, in the summer and early fall, and then really was able to then come back and exceed my target by the end of the, by the end of the 4th quarter. And so the only other thing I would say is that it's also really differentiated me amongst people on the sales team in terms of focus and clarity of what's important. And now I feel really good about what I'm doing in terms of the approach of reaching out to customers and having those conversations and being focused, as opposed to just doing a lot of the other busy work on the side, like organizing resources and doing business analytics and all this other stuff. And so it's really been a noticeable difference with our executive team at my company. And so I just want to thank you for the content and for the these opportunities. And so I hope that helps if there's anybody new. It's— I'm a work in progress, but it's getting better.

Good.

Yeah.

And you're selling pretty hard stuff.